Category Archives: Glacial Erratics

OS Grid Reference: SE 00621 40844. Located beside the large barn of Greystones Farm, on Greystones Lane, is a gritstone rock which has several prehistoric cup-marks. A few other rocks is the same field also appear to have faint cup-marks, and one of these large rocks, locally called Cob Stone, also has “possible” cup-marks. Just above the farm there is an outcrop of gritstone rocks called Greystones Hill. The farm is a ¼ of a mile north of Far Slippery Ford, and the hamlet of Newsholme Dean is about 1 mile to the east on Todley Hall Road. To reach the site travel down Long Gate, then onto Coppy Lane and then Greystones Lane. Walk down the rough farm-track towards Greystones Farm, making sure the wooden gate is secured behind you. Via off the track to the large barn on the left – the cup-marked stone is beside this barn. You can also reach it via the footpath from Long Gate at Far Slippery Ford.

Greystones Farm Cup-Marked Rock (beside the large barn).

Greystones Farm Cup-Marked Rock (close up)

Located at the north side of Greystones Farm barn is a large, weathered gritstone rock bearing several well-defined ancient cup-marks: as many as 15 tiny cups on the flat face of this soft rock. What these carvings represent we don’t really know: maybe they represent a sort of map of the stars, or they are just ancient graffiti or doodlings, or they are a map showing ancient springs, caves, or trackways. Or do they perhaps represent something else. The whiteness, or greyness, of the rock is caused by weather related exposure over thousands of years – the exposed parts of the rock have been washed by rain to the colour that we see today, and so we have “greystones” which is sometimes spelt as “graystones”. A few of the larger rocks up the slope of the same field appear to also have cup-marks, although now very faint. One stone in particular called Cob Stone, near the top of the field at the other side of the track (SE 00553 40888) has eroded cup-marks on top. These cup-marked rocks were recorded and numbered by Boughey & Vickerman in their survey of 2003. (See The Northern Antiquarian link below).

Latitude: -45.348199. Longitude: 170.827305. Strewn along the Moeraki beach, Koekohe Beach and Shag Point, in the Otago region, at the far south-eastern side of South Island, New Zealand, are many strange oval and spherical-shaped boulders – resembling, perhaps, giant potatoes – indeed the very name ‘Moeraki’ means “potatoes” in the Maori language of New Zealand. There is an interesting legend, to say the least, which attests to this strange curiosity. Many of these boulders are often half submerged in the sand and bed-rock, but when the tide comes in they mysteriously disappear, obviously, (or do they) and, after the tide goes back out they are seen to be not submerged ie ‘completely whole’ or fully uncovered of sand. These large boulders probably date back 60-65 million years. They are located in the south-eastern part of the South Island, in New Zealand, some 35 km (22 miles) south of Oamaru, between Moeraki and Hampden, and 80 km (67 miles) north of Dunedin. Access to the boulders is from highway 1 (Hampden-Palmerston road), just half a mile south of Hampden town, to the Moeraki Boulders Visitor Centre and car-park.

These curious grey boulders are literally strewn along the beach, often in clusters, and some in smaller groups of two or so. They vary in size but generally they are somewhere between 1 foot 7 inches and 7 foot 2 inches in circumference and in height between 2-8 feet; some are damaged and broken up due to constant erosion from the pounding waves, many others are wonderfully smooth-shaped and ‘naturally patterned’ with unusual circular, diamond and oblong shapes, said to be somewhat similar to ‘the eyes in potatoes’, but with connecting lines. The boulders are made of hardened mud, silt and clay, and they are cemented together with calcite which is often quite weak at the core and hard at the outer rim, which might account for some of the boulders cracking apart! Seamus P. Cahill writing in ‘Ireland’s Own’ magazine says that these “Huge stones appear on the sand at Otago, New Zealand, and then disappear – only to be replaced mysteriously by new ones!”.

In the colourful and informative book ‘The Beauty of New Zealand’ by Errol Brathwaite we are informed that: “Moeraki Beach is named after the potato which ancient Polynesian voyagers brought with them in their double-hulled, ocean-going canoe. The canoe, so the olden legend goes, capsized near Shag Point, at the end of the beach, and the moeraki potatoes and some gourds which she was carrying were strewn by the tide along the beach, and were later transformed into boulders. Today, these septarian stones lie half buried in sand, a geological oddity, rusty-red or yellow inside, with crystalline cores”.

But we know that in geological terms they date back 60-65 million years and apparently lay on the sea bottom for much of that time, until the sea-levels began to fall some 15 million years ago. But the fact that “they” disappear and then reappear is simply an over-active (vivid) imagination from more recent times. The boulders are now something of a tourist attraction, and visitors (and geologists!) come here from all over the world to see these strange and curious rock formations. The boulders are sometimes called Araiteuru after the legendary Polynesian voyager sailing canoe which was said to have brought them here hundreds of years ago when they were apparently, and with much imagination – large potatoes! It is recorded that the Araiteuru also carried a cargo of calabashes, barracudas and eel baskets, and so I am minded to say that it must have been a very, very large canoe to carry such a large amount of items!

SD7659 7003. High upon the moors a few miles to the north of Austwick and the A65 Ingleton road are several large Silurian sandstone and slate boulders that were brought here at the last Ice-Age between 12,000-15,000 years ago by glacial movement. These odd-shaped boulders stand upon little limestone pedestals or stilts, some of which are up to 60cms high.

When the glaciers moved (retreated) south from the Lake District they picked up large stones and boulders on the floor of Crummackdale further to the north of Norber and, after the ice melted away these erratics were deposited or shifted upwards – usually up to the higher ground to the west of the Pennines.

These large boulders are said to be from the Ordovician geological period some 400million years ago, while the white limestone beneath them is much younger – only 100 million years ago. Over many thousands of years the boulders have protected the little pedestal formations beneath them from the weather, whereas the other surrounding limestone has been worn away – and that is why the boulders have been left looking like they are today – up in the air. The name erratic means “scattered about”.